Spiritual but not religious — Not
so fast!
Making the case for moving beyond your own personal God
Everybody seems to be spiritual these days — from your
college roommate, to the person in the office cubicle next to yours, to every
other celebrity interviewed. But if “spiritual” is fashionable, “religious” is
unfashionable. This is usually expressed as follow: “I’m spiritual but just not
religious.” It’s even referred to by the acronym SBNR.
The thinking goes like this: being “religious” means
abiding by arcane rules and hidebound dogmas, and being the tool of an
oppressive institution that doesn’t allow you to think for yourself. (Which
would have surprised many thinking believers, like St. Thomas Aquinas, Moses
Maimonides, Dorothy Day and Reinhold Niebuhr.) Religion is narrow-minded and
prejudicial — so goes the thinking — stifling the growth of the human spirit.
(Which would have surprised St. Francis of Assisi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, St.
Teresa of Ávila, Rumi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Or worse, as several contemporary authors contend,
religion is the most despicable of social evils, responsible for all the wars
and conflicts around the world.
Sadly, religion is in fact responsible for many ills in
the modern world and evils throughout history: among them the persecution of
Jews, endless wars of religion, the Inquisition, not to mention the religious
intolerance and zealotry that leads to terrorism.
You can add to this list smaller things: your judgmental
neighbor who loudly tells you how often he helps out at church, your
holier-than-thou relative who trumpets how often she reads the Bible, or that
annoying guy at work who keeps telling you that belief in Jesus is sure to
bring you amazing financial success.
There is a human and sinful side to religion since
religions are human organizations, and therefore prone to sin. And frankly,
people within religious organizations know this better than those outside of
them.
Some positive aspects
Some say that on balance religion is found wanting. Still,
I would stack up against the negatives some positive aspects: traditions of
love, forgiveness and charity as well as the more tangible outgrowths of
thousands of faith-based organizations that care for the poor, like Catholic
Charities or the vast network of Catholic hospitals and schools that care for
poor and immigrant populations. Think too of generous men and women like St.
Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Catherine of Siena, Dorothy Day,
Mother Teresa and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King again. Speaking of Dr. King,
you might add the abolition, women’s suffrage and civil rights movements, all
of which were founded on explicitly religious principles. Add to that list the
billions of believers who have found in their own religious traditions not only
comfort but also a moral voice urging them to live selfless lives and to
challenge the status quo.
And Jesus of Nazareth. Remember him? Though he often
challenged the religious conventions of his day, he was a deeply religious man.
(This is something of an understatement).
By the way, atheism doesn’t have a perfect record
either. In his book No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and
Believers, Michael Novak points out that while many atheist thinkers urge
us to question everything, especially the record of organized religion,
atheists often fail to question their own record. Think of the cruelty and
bloodshed perpetrated, just in the 20th century, by totalitarian regimes that
have professed “scientific atheism.” Stalinist Russia comes to mind.
On balance, religion comes out on top. And when I think
about the examples of the maleficent effects of religion, I remember the
English novelist Evelyn Waugh, a dazzling writer who was by many accounts a
nasty person. One of Waugh’s friends once expressed astonishment that he could
be so mean-spirited and a Christian. Think, said Waugh, how much worse I
would be if I were not Christian.
“But I’m my own person”
Still, it’s not surprising that, given all the problems
with organized religion, many people would say, “I’m not religious.” They say:
“I’m serious about living a moral life, maybe even one that centers on God, but
I’m my own person.”
“Spiritual” on the other hand, implies that, freed from
unnecessary dogma, you can be yourself before God. The term may also imply that
you have sampled a variety of religious beliefs that you have integrated into
your life. You meditate at a Buddhist temple, participate in Seders with Jewish
friends at Passover, sing in a gospel choir at a local Baptist church (great
again), and go to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at a Catholic church (also
great).
You find what works for you, but don’t subscribe to any
one church: that would be too confining. Besides, there’s no one creed that
represents exactly what you believe.
But there’s a problem. While “spiritual” is obviously
healthy, “not religious” may be another way of saying that faith is something
between you and God. And while faith is a question of you and God, it’s not just
a question of you and God.
Because this would mean that you’re relating to God
alone. And that means that there’s no one to suggest when you might be off
track.
We all tend to think that we’re correct about most
things, and spirituality is no exception. And not belonging to a religious
community means less of a chance of being challenged by a tradition of belief
and experience, less chance to recognize when you are misguided, seeing only
part of the picture, or even wrong.
Consider a person who wants to follow Jesus Christ on
her own. Perhaps she has heard that if she follows Christ she will enjoy
financial success — a popular idea today. Were she part of a mainstream Christian
community, though, she would be reminded that suffering is part of the life of
even the most devout Christian. Without the wisdom of a community, she may
gravitate towards a skewed view of Christianity. Once she falls on hard times
financially, she may drop God, who has ceased to meet her personal needs.
Despite our best efforts to be spiritual we make mistakes. And when we do, it’s
helpful to have the wisdom of a religious tradition.
This reminds me of a passage from a book called Habits of the
Heart, written by Robert Bellah, sociologist of religion, and other
colleagues, in which they interviewed a woman named Sheila, about her religious
beliefs. “I believe in God,” she said. “I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t
remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way.
It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice.”
No place for humility
More problematic than Sheilaism are spiritualities
entirely focused on the self, with no place for humility, self-critique or any
sense of responsibility for the community. Certain “New Age” movements find
their goal not in God, or even the greater good, but in self-improvement — a
valuable goal — but one that can degenerate into selfishness.
Religion can provide a check against my tendency to
think that I am the center of the universe, that I have all the answers, that I
know better than anyone about God, and that God speaks most clearly through me.
By the same token, religious institutions need
themselves to be called to account. And here the prophets among us, who are
able to see the failures, weaknesses and plain old sinfulness of institutional
religion, play a critical role. Like individuals who are never challenged,
religious communities can often get things tragically wrong, convinced that
they are doing “God’s will.” (Think of the Salem witch trials, among other
examples.) They might even encourage us to become complacent in our judgments.
Unreflective religion can sometimes incite people to make even worse
mistakes than they would on their own. Thus, those prophetic voices calling
their communities to continual self-critique are always difficult for the
institution to hear, but nonetheless necessary.
It’s a healthy tension: the wisdom of our religious
traditions provides us with a corrective for our propensity to think that we
have all the answers; and prophetic individuals can moderate the natural
propensity of institutions to resist change and growth. As with many aspects of
the spiritual life, you need to find balance in the tension.
Religion provides us with something else we need:
stories of other believers, who help us understand God better than we could on
our own.
To connect and correct
Isaac Hecker was a 19th-century convert to
Catholicism who became a priest and founded the American religious order known
as the Paulists. [FYI, the Paulists created and continue to sponsor Busted
Halo. –ed] He summed it up best. Religion, said Hecker, helps you to
“connect and correct.” You are invited into a community to connect with one
another and with a tradition. At the same time, you are corrected when you need
to be. And you may be called to correct your own community — though a special
kind of discernment and humility is required in those cases.
Religion can lead people to do terrible things. At its
best, though, religion modifies our natural tendency to believe that we have
all the answers. So despite what many detractors say, and despite the arrogance
that sometimes infects religious groups, religion at its best introduces
humility into your life.
Religion also reflects the social dimension of human
nature. Human beings naturally desire to be with one another, and that desire
extends to worship. It’s natural to want to worship together, to gather with
other people who share your desire for God, and to work with others to fulfill
the dreams of your community.
Experiencing God also comes through personal interactions
within the community. Sure, God communicates through private, intimate moments
— as in prayer or reading of sacred texts — but sometimes God enters into
relationships with us through others in a faith community. Finding God often
happens in the midst of a community — with a “we” as often as an “I.” For many
people this is a church, a synagogue or a mosque. Or more broadly, religion.
Transcending your individual
understanding of God
Finally, religion means that your understanding of God
and the spiritual life can more easily transcend your individual understanding
and imagination. Do you imagine God as a stern judge? That’s fine — if it helps
you draw closer to God or to become a more moral person. But a religious
tradition can enrich your spiritual life in ways that you might not be able to
discover by yourself.
Here’s an example: One of my favorite images of God is
the “God of Surprises,” which I first encountered in the novitiate. My own idea
of God at the time was limited to God the Far Away, so it was liberating to
hear about a God who surprises, who waits for us with wonderful things. It’s a
playful, even fun, image of God. But I would have never come up with it on my
own.
It came to me from my spiritual director in the Jesuit
novitiate, who had read it in a book of that same title by an English Jesuit
named Gerard W. Hughes, who borrowed it from an essay by the German Jesuit Karl
Rahner.
That image was amplified when I read the conclusion of
one of the great modern spiritual novels, Mariette in Ecstasy. Ron
Hansen, an award-winning writer who is also an ordained Catholic deacon, penned
the story of the religious experiences of a young nun in the early 1900s,
loosely based on the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the French Carmelite. At
the end of the story, Mariette, who has left the monastery many years before,
writes to her former novice mistress, and assures her that God still
communicates with her.
We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but
instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness
floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.
My image of the God who surprises and the God who waits
for surprises came from three Jesuit priests and the religious imagination of a
Catholic writer and deacon. In other words, that idea was given to me by
religion.
Overall, being spiritual and being religious are both
part of being in relationship with God. Neither can be fully realized without
the other. Religion without spirituality becomes a dry list of dogmatic
statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus warned
against. Spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency
divorced from the wisdom of a community.
That’s what I’m warning against.
The Rev. James Martin SJ, a Catholic priest, is culture
editor of America magazine the national Catholic Weekly published by the
Jesuits. This essay is excerpted from his book “The Jesuit Guide
to (Almost) Everything.”
